


Moonless Dawn; We're Departing in the Dark.

by Bucket_Yutou



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Dimension Travel, Feels, Gen, Not A Fix-It, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Poor Uchiha Obito, Post-Fourth Shinobi War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rokudaime Hatake Kakashi, Time Travel, Trauma, Work In Progress, kid!Obito
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:08:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27565768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bucket_Yutou/pseuds/Bucket_Yutou
Summary: A boy cries out under the moon; Nobody is there to answer him that night.20 years later, a man wakes up at the brink of dawn.[Or - Obito, instead of going back to Madara after witnessing Rin’s death, his wonky manipulation of Kamui sent him forward in time, two years after a war he supposedly initiated.]
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Uchiha Obito
Comments: 11
Kudos: 32





	Moonless Dawn; We're Departing in the Dark.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh gosh, here we go. Hi! This is my first work in the Naruto fandom. I want to give a million thanks to the Tenzou's Cabin Discord server, I wouldn't have gone through even the first paragraph without the amazing people there :') Really, it's the main source of my joys these days.  
> Work in progress, no update schedule, not sure how long this will be. I thrive in chaos, lol. Tags will be updated as the story progresses.  
> English isn't my first language, and I didn't read Naruto in English, either. Not (yet?) beta'ed.  
> Hope you enjoy <3

Kakashi is awake in the middle of the night, but something feels wrong. The first thing he notices is that there is no blanket covering him, and the surrounding air feels too stuffy to be his apartment. He knows that his home’s ventilation is below standard, but it has never gotten this extreme over the years. The surface he is lying on doesn’t feel like a bed at all, too. Kakashi tries to stir and cringes internally at the cold wetness accumulating at the back of his neck and his bare ankles. It appears that he is lying on a pool of water.

It takes several seconds for him to register his surroundings after opening his eye. He is slightly alarmed by the way the water he was lying on seems to extend all the way beyond the horizon. The lighting in this (area? space?) gives no sign of the time of the day. Everything is in a gradient of pale indigo. Kakashi considers the possibility that he got trapped in a genjutsu. This isn’t the usual recurring nightmares he was so used to having, and he rarely dreams these days with all the stress he was having with- 

With what exactly? 

He struggles to remember what was bothering him before waking up to this. It was something important, he’s sure of it, but he can’t seem to recall anything of significance.

“Stop looking so sullen, Kakashi. The look doesn’t fit you.” He hears Obito calling out at him.

Wait, Obito-

“Obito?” He feels even more disoriented. Usually, when Obito visits him in his dreams, it’s in the form of a violent nightmare. It more or less starts with him demanding Kakashi why he failed to protect Rin and ends with Kakashi’s knees on the ground, muttering frantic words of apology. If Obito is here, mayhaps he is in a nightmare after all. Though Obito had never come to remind him of his sins in a place with such a beautiful ambiance. Kakashi is used to a dark smog covering Rin’s face and Obito’s Sharingan bleeding the forest ground into a deep red.

“You don’t remember?” Obito tilts his head in confusion, expression unreadable. His eyes have a bright gleam to them, though, Kakashi notes. A faint blue hue reflected in his pupils, matching with the rest of the scenery. “How was your talk with Sakumo-san?”

Ah.

Memories rushed back to his mind, and he pieced together the situation at hand. He was dead. His fight against Pain has drained his chakra, and he died defending the future of Konoha.

‘Finally, I can join your mother.’ His father has a gentle smile across his wrinkled features. Kakashi had stared at that face, feeling as though his heart is overflowing with water tides. So with a final arch of an eye, Kakashi let his dam tumble apart. There is now a light stream flowing steadily towards the future in the chambers of his heart.

Then it came to him that the place he is standing right now is where he saw Minato-sensei, Rin, and Obito welcoming his arrival. Before he sets foot towards the Other Realm, he finds out that his father was left in limbo en route to the Underground Spring, unable to move on. After having met his Father, he’s confident he will follow Sakumo’s path. So why is he back in the headspace where he greets the pasted ones’ silhouettes instead of reuniting with them on the other side?

“Umm, I’m really not supposed to be here. So I’ll make it quick.” Kakashi lifts his eyes up back on Obito, where the teen’s expressions shift with a tinge of nervousness. 

“Why are you seeing me like this, Obito?” If Obito was trapped just like his Father was, then the reason he shows up before him must be similar to that of Sakumo’s as well. Kakashi finds himself suddenly anxious about what Obito has to say. What is preventing him from moving on? He has all the reason to reunite with Rin. Kakashi isn’t sure how to deal with the fact that he had barred Obito from getting to Rin in Heaven for all those years.

To Kakashi’s surprise, Obito chuckles. A pleasant sound which pains him to realize that he missed it now more than ever. Selfishly, he wishes Obito’s more common visits to be more like this one: Happy and full of healthy nostalgia, instead of the sadness shown to him with Obito’s empty eye socket. “Haven’t I told you to wipe that expression off your face?” Obito stood himself tall, his brows relaxing and eyes turning solemn. “I just want to see you again before I go,” He mutters, turning his face away. Kakashi just stares.

“Fret not, Kakashi. You will see me again!” Obito says after a brief pause, pulling his face back to his trademark grin. Kakashi loathed himself for missing it. 

“Ah! But not me! Not really, anyways.” Sensing Kakashi’s confusion, Obito quickly adds, crossing his arms as he always did when thinking hard about something too difficult for him to understand. Despite that, what Obito said only deepens Kakashi’s frown. That hardly clears things up, he thinks to himself.

“The one you will soon cross paths with won’t be the Obito you’re looking at right now. Does that clear things up or Nah?” Obito seems to be stuck, struggling to articulate his thoughts. Still, when Kakashi opens his mouth to ask for clarification, Obito gave him a look that made Kakashi felt like he is only going to get as much information as the boy is willing to give and nothing more. “But I will see you again. I promise you.”

What does Obito mean by all that? Kakashi is dead. Obito is supposed to be with Rin, but he’s standing right here, talking about how the Copy-nin is going to see a different version of him soon, and he is here to say his goodbyes. What does it mean that he ‘isn’t supposed to be here’? Kakashi searches Obito’s eyes, seeing nothing but a genuine glint of content reflected in his irises. So he averts his eyes, swallowing thickly. He tries and fails to recall the last time he had felt this thoroughly exposed under someone’s gaze.

“Thank you, Kakashi. I’m glad I got to see you here.” Obito’s eyes on him are soft despite Kakashi feels like he’s being pierced by them.  _ I haven’t done anything to deserve his gratitude _ , Kakashi’s higher-self jabs at him, reminding him of his place as he pulled himself away before getting lost in the peacefulness the gem of his past is offering to him.

“You’re waking up. Goodbye, Kakashi.”

Before Kakashi opens his mouth to protest, the water below engulfs him, and his legs give out, throwing him into familiar darkness that typically surrounds him during occasional dreamless nights.

The next moment he opens his eyes on a Saturday in early Spring. He wakes up at his apartment, the Hokage headpiece sitting by the window to his headboard’s right.

~oOo~

Obito had waited. Obito had tried so hard. He had to fill his mind with the memories of him and his team, or else he wasn’t sure if he could stay sane. Although at first, it was merely for motivation, he had to get back to let them know that he’s alive. There was no way he would stay in this cave with the mad grandpa and two pale weirdos, so he kept himself occupied with his physical recovery. It was a task simple enough to distract his body, but his mind had started to spin, and sluggish mumbling at night morphed into muffled screams, so Obito tried harder to occupy his mind as well.

With each Burpees he did, Obito hears Rin’s encouraging words urging him forward.

With each One-handed pull up he did, Obito sees himself brawl with Kakashi.

The material that made up the right side of his new body has eliminated the need to eat. He knows that he should feel creeped out about it, or at least worry if he had also lost the ability to digest food, but he tried not to focus on the thought of it. Every time his mind wandered off during hours of stillness, Obito couldn’t stop mulling about the fact that his stomach always felt like it’s trapped in a void, yet nothing is out-of-place because of it: as if he was always supposed to be like this, empty and devoid of desire. There’s no more of the satisfying weight of protein and starch sitting in him after a warm dinner, a sign that he has a tomorrow filled with time with his team to look forward to. Now, he just had the two yappy morons, a hibernating grandpa, and a new body that he’s determined to whip into shape as fast as possible.

Obito considered applying the type of self-rule Gai always use in his training. He tried it on himself and quickly decides that it only drives him further into frustration and negativity, so he trashed that method. Luckily, it didn’t take him long to find an efficient structure for his circuits so that the sweat and dopamine worked together, effectively numbing his trembling heart and subdues the thought loops circling inside his head. 

With each step he took on the tightrope, Obito blinks away the look of disgust and disappointment from his clan’s people and replaces them with words of gratitude from the Granny he’s carrying on his back.

With each rock he balances over his head, Obito shakes away the thought of him being undeserving of Rin’s attention and care and overwrites it with an ambitious future for his team now that he and Kakashi have obtained Sharingan.

What Madara had told him when he woke up after the incident rarely affected him on good days where his mind is nullified, and the blood flows hot in his veins as his workouts rejuvenate the blood circulation.  _ It does not need to matter how likely Madara might be right _ ; he had once muttered at the Gedou-Mazou looming over the dark and damp cave. Obito has decided to push away those outlandish claims the old man had made since his goal is to get on with his recovery so he can return to his normal life as it is before. As ‘normal’ as it could be during a war, at least. It bothered him that he does not know anything about the stance of The Land of Fire on the battlefields, let alone the safety of his teammates. What have they been up to since Obito got crashed? How long has it been, a year? Three years? Or maybe just a month? He had stopped counting ages ago, and his sense of time was shaken by the perpetual lack of sunlight and fresh air to the point that he no longer had a clear idea of day and night. Obito couldn’t trust his own judgment, and his company have been barely cooperative. Even though Guruguru and Shiroi-no were sympathetic towards him, the amount of information he gets from them wasn’t enough to learn anything significant despite that Shiroi-no spends most of its time outside. “ _ You _ are the captive here, so  _ we _ will be the ones asking  _ you _ questions, not the other way around.” Guruguru once said before making him explain ridiculous things such as the body’s internal clock for bowel movements.

He only had himself, and when his faith in himself started to waiver, he had the thought of his team that constructed the majority of the good part of his life back in Konoha to hold on to. And Obito grabbed on to it, held on tight like a bear cub clinging to its mother’s neck. Rin’s smile had now clearly tattooed into the back of his eyelids. It seemed brighter than ever, and the light pulsation in his right bicep after long hours of exercising helped to keep his nights dreamless for the most part. 

So when he saw the screeching pulse of electricity, a bright fluorescent with a hint of blue, and even with that overwhelming radiance, Obito couldn’t miss the crimson spilling from all the wrong places. All the hope he was made to hold onto over the past months polluted by a single scene, forever stored in the depth of his transformed Sharingan eye.

Obito wailed.

Obito had gone berserk, killing every single Kiri ANBU with a sense of blood rage he has never felt before. He couldn’t help but notice at the back of his disturbed mind that with each blow he makes he was also killing the Rin behind his eye. By the time the moon gleamed red from the blood pooling underneath his feet, he had murdered that Rin too.

His eye bled due to his killing spree, but it seemed more like the effects of grief to him more than overusing the Dou-Jutsu. He felt an overwhelming urge to fill up the empty space it has left behind.

_ Let’s build a world where you exist again, Rin. A place where you smile just as brightly. I can’t stand the darkness you left behind every time I close my eyes. -  _ Obito thought as he shuffles towards Rin’s corpse.

Only that his clumsy control over the new Space-Time Jutsu let his foot slip right through the Kunai pouch of the now unconscious Kakashi. The Hiraishin Seal on Minato’s Kunai interacting violently with his still unrefined Pocket Dimension, and Obito was left with a field of white in his sight, which was quickly replaced by a familiar darkness, not unlike his place of confinement. 

Just like that, Obito vanished with a flash.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I might have made Kid!Obito slightly more neurotic than canon, oops. Most of you should have guessed what's going to happen next by now >:) It'll be fun writing how the two of them deal with what fate had decided to pull on them. Tell me your thoughts!
> 
> [Please let me know if you need any chapter specific warnings]


End file.
